CopyKate Shawl

So, the Royal Wedding was a couple of weeks ago. Awesome. Dress was beautiful. About a week later, the lovely Catherine Middleton was spotted at the supermarket wearing this fabulous shawl.




Everyone on the lovely knitting site Ravelry has been freaking out about it. Ok, not everyone, just me a select bunch of others. It is a great shawl, and I am not about to pass up the opportunity to knit it. However, there isn't a pattern, no one knows for sure where she got hers (yeah, I know a lot of sites claim Minnie Rose, but that isn't the same shawl, just similar, and not as nice, if you ask me.)

Anyhoo, being the impatient sort, I decided to try and knit one up myself.



To my surprise, after I posted a pic, several people asked for a chart and instructions, so, folks, here it is! It is not perfect, I have not finished knitting the shawl and it is an experiment and I don't write knitting patterns. I am a fashion designer, not a knitting pattern designer. So, without further ado, here is the chart and some notes...oh, and a pic of my shawl so far.





















I began by casting on 8 stitches with the long tail cast on, then purled a plain row, then starts the shaping. Whilst shaping, you will also be knitting/purling the chevron pattern in the chart. It is a purl stitch, separated by 5 knit stitches for 9 rows in a diagonal pattern. Every 10th row is a garter ridge. The diagonal rows of purl stitches with the garter rows create the chevron pattern.
-I start out with regular shawl shaping, a kfb 1 stitch in from each edge, then a YO increase either side of center.
After 23 rows of this, I switch to a double increase on the edge,
-so kfb, kfb, knit in pattern to one before center stitch, YO, knit center stitch and then mirror the chart back.
After doing 28 rows of this increase, which gives the shawl enough curve to go around my neck, I switch to a shallower increase.
-K1, kfb, knit in pattern to one before center, YO, knit center stitch and reverse for the other side.
-On alternate right side rows, kfb, kfb, knit in pattern to one before center, YO, knit center stitch and reverse for the other side.
-Continue in this alternate row pattern of increases until shawl is your desired size. Leave stitches live.
I did a total of 15 "rows" of the 10 row repeat.




















Now, there are a couple of options at this point for the ruffle. You can pick up a bazillion stitches and knit a 1x1 rib or a 1x1 stockinette slip rib. To do the slip rib, on every right side row you slip every other stitch, purl normally on the wrong side.
The other option is a garter ruffle. Pick up 1 stitch from shawl edge, cast on as many stitches as you need to get the DEPTH of ruffle you desire,(mine is 17 stitches deep) then turn and knit back to the shawl, when you get to the last stitch, pick up another stitch from the shawl edge and knit this together with the last stitch of your ruffle, turn and knit back to ruffle edge. Continue this around. I picked up 2 stitches, then picked up a bar inbetween, then 2 stitches and one inbetween. On the neck, I picked up 3 stitches for every two rows.
On the two end corners, I did 6 shortrows down and then back up, to go around the corner.
Graft the ends of the ruffle together after you have FINALLY reached the end.
Hope it works for you! Contact me if you have any questions and I will try to answer them.
And here is the chart. The red stitches are the center and are not repeated. The dark block stitches are purls on the right side and knits on the wrong side. The blank spaces are knit on the right side and purl on the wrong side. The even numbers are right side rows and the odd are wrong side rows, so the first row you knit will be a wrong side. The chart only goes a few rows into the third set of increases, but you will simply continue in pattern from this point until you finish, get fed up or run out of yarn.
Clicking on the chart will enlarge it.